We All Gotta Go Sometime. Death. The Finale. Quiz

Answer: Mark Twain

Mark Twain, that sly old fox. Apparently, he thought death was rather a cool thing, because he also said "We owe a deep debt of gratitude to Adam, the first great benefactor of the human race: he brought death into the world."
[Quotes from "The Dictionary of Humorous Quotations," edited Evan Esar (Dorset Press: New York, 1949, 1989)]

Answer: a fly buzzing

Dickinson seemed obsessed with death and dying, but she never feared death, because she was pretty well convinced of a pleasant afterlife. In "I Never Saw a Moor," she says;

"I never spoke with God,
Nor visited in Heaven.
Yet certain am I of the spot
As if the chart were given."

We can only wonder: Did she herself hear the fly buzz?
[Poem from www.americanpoems.com]

Answer: lost three husbands

"The machete and an eyepatch" phrase I heard from a stand-up comedian decades ago, but it still gets a laugh. As far as the other choices go, that's a matter of taste. Hubbard also said, "When a feller tells you it's not the money but the principle of the thing, it's the money." He was a great wit, and a puncturer of the pompous.
[All Hubbard quotes from "The Dictionary of Humorous Quotations," ed. Evan Esar,
(Dorset Press: New York 1949, 1989.)]

Answer: an old door

In "Death Is a Door," Turner says, "Death is only an old door [through which]
very willing and weary feet [go]." In other words, don't sweat it, welcome it.
My guess is she must have been a pretty tired woman, and an old one to boot.
[Quote from "The Best Loved Poems of the American People," selected by Hazel Felleman, Doubleday & Co.,(Garden City,N.Y: 1936)]

Answer: Dylan Thomas

This poem concerns an actual death, unlike the theoretical deaths versed by Dickinson and Turner above. Thomas writes about the death of his father.
[Poem lines quoted from www.Bigeye.com.]

Answer: Annabel Lee

Poe always wrote about the deep things, and got pretty darn dramatic about it, too. He lived in many places, including my old stomping grounds in the Bronx, New York. Sadly, he died penniless in Baltimore, MD.
[Poem from "The Best Loved Poems of the American People," selected by Hazel Felleman, Doubleday & Co.,(Garden City,N.Y: 1936)]

Answer: Robert Louis Stevenson

Stevenson lived a relatively short life of 44 years. Plagued by respiratory disease since teenage years, he was always looking for a healthy site to live. He spent the last six years of his life cruising the South Seas, finally dying in Samoa. In his poem "Requiem," Stevenson says, "Here he lies where he longed to be;/ Home is the sailor, home from sea,/ And the hunter home from the hill." J.F. Cooper is known for "Last of the Mohicans," Golding for "Lord of the Flies," and Orwell for "1984," "Animal Farm," etc. [Question's quote from "The Oxford Book of Aphorisms," selected by John Gross, Oxford University Press,(Oxford: 1983). "Requiem" from "A Treasury of Great Poems," compiled and selected by Louis Untermeyer, Galahad Books, (New York: 1993)]

Answer: Da Vinci

Botticelli and Titian were Renaissance painters; I used Leonardo DiCaprio because
I love his name. Da Vinci is more than just a great painter. Remember, among other things, he was a sought-after mercenary.
[Quote from "The Oxford Book of Aphorisms," selected by John Gross, Oxford University Press,(Oxford: 1983).]

Answer: a terrible affliction

What La Bruyere is saying is the only reason anyone of us can bear death is it happens to everyone; that it would be unbearable if some escaped it. If you think death would be "a wonderful thing" or "a piece of cake" if it only struck some, than you'd probably be one of the ballsiest gamblers on earth, as well as a first-class sadist. However, death IS sometimes horrible for those it leaves behind. And sometimes not.
[Quote from "The Oxford Book of Aphorisms," selected by John Gross, Oxford University Press,(Oxford: 1983).]

Answer: Clarence Darrow

Lawyer Clarence Darrow was more known for his courtroom acumen than his wit. Frankly, one might expect this pithy humorous quote from any one of the other three guys. Just a thought; I wonder if the parents of Bobby Franks, the kid who was murdered by Leopold & Loeb, the thrill-killing pair whom Darrow defended in court, relished Darrow's obituary.
[Quote from "The Dictionary of Humorous Quotations," ed. Evan Esar,
(Dorset Press: New York 1949, 1989)]